Chennai: Wounded Delhi Daredevils would be eager to draw inspiration from their own performances in the league stages for a spot in the final of the ongoing Indian Premier League when they take on a rejuvenated Chennai Super Kings in the second qualifying match on Friday.

Having topped the table with 11 wins out of 16 matches at the league stage, the Daredevils were humbled by Kolkata Knight Riders in the first qualifier in Pune on Tuesday.

The high-flying Daredevils failed to live up to their expectations with a string of mediocre performances in their previous game against KKR and on Friday is their last chance to redeem their reputation of being the most consistent side of the IPL V so far.

On the other hand, defending champions Chennai, despite their ordinary performances in the league stages, peaked just at the right time. They recovered from an impossible situation to keep alive their chances of winning a hat-trick titles alive.

With skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who smashed a whirlwind 20-ball 51 against Mumbai Indians on Wednesday to help his team make the second qualifier, returning to form in style, the Daredevils might have to bring in some fresh game plan to arrest the marauding Chennai outfit.

While Chennai would be hoping for a similar performance, in what could be considered as a semifinal against the Daredevils on Friday, Virender Sehwag's men would be relying heavily on their batting.

The Delhi side would be depending on their strong batting lineup, consisting of the likes of Sehwag, David Warner, Mahela Jayawardane, Ross Taylor and Naman Ojha, to post a formidable total on the board, their bowling department heavily relies on pace trio of Morne Morkel, Umesh Yadav and Irfan Pathan.

But come Friday, Delhi would certainly have to be cautious against a team that had, in past, regrouped into a cohesive team during crunch games.

The Super Kings, who bring out their best when they are pushed to the wall, are expected to come hard at the Daredevils.

Although as compared to the Daredevils, the Super Kings were far from impressive during the league stages with eight wins and a no result from 16 games, there collective performance has been good in the tournament so far.

The batting looks good with Michael Hussey, Dhoni, S Badrinath, Suresh Raina and Murali Vijay making it a formidable lineup.

With Hussey and Ben Hilfenhaus having contributed extensively with the bat and ball in last seven matches or so, Chennai would hope them to repeat the show on Friday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk.

Chennai's spin department will be lead by Ravichandran Ashwin in the company of Shahdab Jakati and Ravindra Jadeja.

Ashwin and Jadeja have been among wickets, while Albie Morkel, Hilfenhaus and Dwayne Bravo also contributed to the team's success. In all counts, these five bowlers have the ability to wreck any strong combination and dislodge the middle order.

Going by the variety in their bowling and presence of all-rounders -- Bravo, Jadeja and Morkel -- in the team, the Super Kings, if they click in unison, could be unstoppable.

The Super Kings will also take heart from the fact that in the history of the championship so far, they have never been the table toppers but always made it to the top four before bagging the title twice in four seasons.

With both the teams filled with power performers, the spectators can expect a keen battle on Friday.

Teams (from):

Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain and wicket-keeper), Michael Hussey, Murali Vijay, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Srikkanth Anirudha, DWayne Bravo, Albie Morkel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ben Hilfenhaus, Shadab Jakati, Doug Bollinger, Francois du Plessis, George Bailey, Scott Styris, Suraj Randiv, Abhinav Mukund, G Vignesh, Joginder Sharma, Kuthethur Vasudevadas, Subramaniam Badrinath, Sudeep Tyagi, Yo Mahesh and Wriddhiman Saha.

Delhi Daredevils: Virender Sehwag (captain), Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Umesh Yadav, Puneet Bisht, Robin Bist, Naman Ojha (wicket-keeper), Shahbaz Nadeem, Venugopal Rao, Vikas Mishra, Yogesh Nagar, Zafir Patel, Sunny Gupta, Tejashwi Yadav, Aavishkar Salvi, Kuldeep Raval, Manpreet Juneja, Pawan Negi, Prashant Naik, Aaron Finch, Andre Russell, Doug Bracewell, Glenn Maxwell, Gulam Bodi, Morne Morkel, Roelf van der Merwe.

(Agencies)

Latest News from Sports News Desk

Kabul: With most foreign combat troops set to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014, Iran is is using the media in the war-ravaged nation to gain influence, a worrying issue for Washington.   

Nearly a third of Afghanistan's media is backed by Iran, either financially or through providing content, Afghan officials and media groups say.   

"What Iran wants, what they are striving at, is a power base in Afghanistan that can counter American influence," said a senior government official, who like others for this report, spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.    

"They are without a doubt doing this through supporting and funding our media."    

Iran spends USD 100 million a year in Afghanistan, much of it on the media, civil society projects and religious schools, says Daud Moradian, a former foreign ministry advisor who now teaches at the American University in Kabul.    

"It is using Afghanistan to send a message to America that it can't be messed with. Afghanistan becomes a managed battlefield as a result."   

Officials in Tehran could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts and the Iranian embassy in Kabul said it was not prepared to talk about the issues raised in this report.       

New Strategic Pact   

The landmark agreement NATO leaders sealed this week in Chicago, handing control of Afghanistan over to its own security forces by the middle of next year, puts the Western alliance on an "irreversible" path out of the unpopular, decade-long war.   

Some security analysts say the withdrawal could lead to increasing instability and then to civil war -- and an opportunity for Iran and others to move into the resulting power vacuum.   

When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 following a decade-long occupation and the pro-Moscow government in Kabul collapsed, Afghanistan's neighbours moved in to arm and fund proxies to gain regional influence as the country plunged into civil war.      

Although Kabul's ties with Tehran have seen sporadic improvement after the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, which had emerged triumphant after the civil war, the relationship is combustible.   

The latest flashpoint is the recent signing of a long-term strategic agreement between the United States and Afghanistan. Though vague on details, the pact was meant to signal U.S. financial and security commitments to Afghanistan through 2024 - particularly for funding the large Afghan National Army.   

Iran, whose frayed ties with the United States have worsened over its disputed nuclear programme, sees the pact as a threat. Iranian-backed media in Afghanistan responded by churning out reports critical of the agreement, and Tehran's ambassador to Afghanistan Abu Fazel Zohrawand threatened to expel Iran's one million Afghan refugees if the pact was not rejected.  

Iran’s talking heads

Afghanistan's intelligence department, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), had earlier gone public with Iran's alleged meddling in the media, saying that weekly newspaper Ensaf and TV channels Tamadon and Noor had received financial support from Iran.   

A journalist who recently left Tamadon TV, owned by Afghanistan's most prominent Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni, told Reuters that while the station never confirmed it was getting support from Tehran "it was obvious".   

"My salary of $600 a month would fluctuate dramatically, as it was pegged to Iran's rial," said the 23-year-old, one of 200 employees at Tamadon, where he worked for four years before resigning over fears his employment would land him in trouble with Afghan authorities.    

"Our office is full of posters calling for protests against the strategic pact with America. We'd invite pro-Iran analysts onto our shows saying Iran was the only one who could help Afghanistan with food and supplies," said the recent graduate, dressed in a tight black long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans.    

Tamadon TV dismissed the claims of Iranian backing as an "insult". Editor in chief Mohammad Rahmati said the station was targeted "because we show core Islamic values; we don't show half-naked dancing women".   

Great Game

Afghanistan has been so much a focus of big power rivalry over the past 200 years -- a failed British occupation in the mid-19th century, the failed Russian one in the 1980s, for example -- it has its own historical sobriquet, "The Great Game".   

As the United States prepares for its own dispirited withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is worried about Iran gaining a strategic advantage in Afghanistan, after seeing Tehran win influence in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion.   

More than half of the 171 TV, satellite channels and radio stations licensed to broadcast in Iraq today are funded by Iran, with others backed by the United States and Arabic Gulf countries, government communications officials say.   

Iran's media strategy is but one strand in a multi-pronged projection of "soft power" into Afghanistan. The two countries share cultural, language and historical links -- for centuries they were part of the ancient Persian empire -- as well as a long and porous border.   

Iran said in 2010 it has provided some $500 million in official assistance for reconstruction projects. Tehran has built religious schools for Afghan Shi'ites, who comprise a  fifth of Sunni-majority Afghanistan's 30 million people.   

Iran may even have MPs on its payroll. An Afghan official who declined to be identified told Reuters that up to 44 of the 249 members of the Afghan parliament are suspected of receiving money from Iran. Iran has not responded to those allegations, which have also been aired in the Afghan media.       

Efforts Intensified

Iran's vehement opposition to the new strategic pact with the United States appears to have intensified efforts to influence public opinion about it.   

Ensaf newspaper, one of the three media outlets the government has said receives funding from Iran, and whose parent company Avapress has offices in Tehran, has published six critical articles on the pact since it was signed by President Barack Obama on a whistlestop visit to Kabul on May 2.   

The three media outlets feature news reports that hold little interest for Afghans, but are important to Iran, using the same messages and wordage carried by Iranian state media.   

The state of Israel, for instance, is called "the Zionist regime", a term Afghan officials generally avoid using.    

"The fact is the stories broadcast have been made available by Iranian sources for propaganda purposes", Loftullah Mashal, a spokesman for the intelligence agency NDS, said last month. The NDS later retracted that claim.   

Iran first started attempting to influence Afghan affairs through the media in 2006, said Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, executive director of the Afghan media development group Nai.   

"The pace has been quickening since 2011, which is when Iran began to actually inject its viewpoint into Afghan media," he said.    

Last year, Afghans were shocked when Tamadon TV broadcast a live speech by Iran's parliament speaker Ali Lari

The Kabul-based reporter of Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency, Abdul Hakimi, was arrested two weeks ago on charges of spying, Afghan officials said. The NDS declined to comment.   

The relatively large, often Western-backed press corps can also face intimidation, abduction or even death for reporting on issues such as corruption and other government failings. Afghanistan ranks seventh on the Committee to Protect Journalists' "Impunity Index", a listing of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes.   

One man who says he is painfully familiar with Iranian interference is author and journalist Razaq Mamoon. He says a masked man who threw acid in his face in January of last year was working for Tehran. The Iranian embassy in Kabul has not commented on his allegations.   

Though media reports at the time said his assailant staged the attack over a soured love affair, Mamoon says his 2010 book which accuses Iran of sabotage and espionage in Afghanistan, motivated Iranian intelligence agencies to attack him.    

"Those individuals who planned the attack on me are still in power and their Iranian spy agencies are still very active in Kabul," Mamoon, who now lives in New Delhi out of fear for his safety, told Reuters in e-mailed comments.

(Agencies)

Latest news from World News Desk

New Delhi: Olympic-bound grappler Amit Kumar has been forced to pull out of the Hari Ram Indian Grand Prix wrestling after being diagnosed with chicken pox while Beijing Games bronze medallist Sushil Kumar still remains a doubtful starter for the inaugural edition of the event, commencing on Friday.

Chief national coach Vinod Kumar informed that Amit has contracted the highly contagious disease and will sit out of the tournament, which will witness 300 grapplers from more than 20 nations in action at the city's Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium.

"Amit was feeling unwell last night and woke up with chicken pox spots in his body this morning. He had spots all over the body. He will not be participating in the tournament as it's an infectious disease," Kumar said.

"The tournament will serve as a good competition before the London Games but we can't take any chances with the health of our medal hopeful. We don't know how he got it but he has just accepted it. Amit will soon return to the ring," the coach added.

Amit had qualified for the London Games after clinching gold in the 55kg category at an Asian qualification tournament in Astana, Kazakhstan in March.

Talking about Sushil, who has a slight niggle in his right knee, Kumar said that a decision on his participation would be taken on Friday before his opening bout on Saturday.

"We will take a call on his participation tomorrow. He is still recovering from the injury. His first bout is on Saturday and that gives us some time to decide. We will take a call keeping in mind the London Olympics as we don't want to rush his return," Kumar said.

The 28-year-old wrestler injured his right knee during the World qualifying event held in Taiyuan, China. Sushil (66kg) picked up the injury in the semifinal bout against Ukraine's Andriy Kvyatkovskyy.

In the absence of Amit and Sushil, other two Olympic-bound wrestlers, Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav would be spearheading the Indian challenge in the men's event.

The three-day tournament, which boasts of a galaxy of Olympians, Asian and European Games medal winners, will be an ideal ground for the Olympic-bound Indian wrestlers to hone their skills ahead of the marquee event.

(Agencies)

Latest News from Sports News Desk

New Delhi: With the party and the government coming under attack over the steep hike in petrol price, Oil Minister S Jaipal Reddy is understood to have met Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and discussed the issue.

The meeting comes against the backdrop of Congress President's concerns over the Rs 7.54 a litre increase and the party hinting at the possibility of at least a partial rollback of the decision.

Reddy, who was in Turkeministan for signing of agreement for TAPI gas pipeline when the third hike in a year and the first in almost seven months was announced, arrived here this evening after cutting short his visit by a day.

Sources said he drove straight from the airport to meet Patel to explain the rationale behind the decision taken by the state-owned oil companies.

State-owned oil firms, who had lost Rs 4,860 crore on not raising prices of the deregulated commodity last fiscal, had lost about Rs 2,400 crore since April as depreciation in rupee wiped away gains made from fall in crude oil prices.

They were losing Rs 6.28 percent litre (excluding local sales tax or VAT) and the "urgency" of raising prices was conveyed by oil marketing companies to Reddy earlier this month.

Sources said the plan was to raise rates after the passage of finance bill in the Parliament but was at the last moment postponed till conclusion of the Budget session. The Budget session of Parliament ended on May 22, which incidentally was also the third anniversary of UPA-II coming to power.

Reddy left for Turkmenistan on his official visit on May 22 and a day later oil firms raised prices by Rs 7.54 a litre in Delhi.

(Agencies)

Latest news from India News Desk

Was the U.S.-India strategic partnership oversold to the extent that it has failed to yield tangible benefits for the United States? Even as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just held detailed discussions in New Delhi, an increasing number of analysts in Washington have already concluded that the overhyped relationship is losing momentum.

The sceptics cite two high-visibility issues in particular: India’s rejection of separate bids by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. to sell 126 fighter-jets, and New Delhi’s reluctance to snap energy ties with Iran. The discussion over these issues, however, obscures key facts.

Take the aircraft deal.  Despite that setback, U.S. firms have clinched several other multibillion-dollar arms deals in recent years. These contracts have been secured on a government-to-government basis, without any competitive bidding.  But in the one case where India invited bids, American firms failed to make it beyond the competition’s first round because they did not match the price and other terms offered by the French manufacturer of the Rafale aircraft and the European consortium that makes the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The most-startling yet little-publicized fact is America’s quiet emergence as the largest arms seller to India. In the decade since President George W. Bush launched the vaunted U.S.-Indian strategic partnership, India has fundamentally reoriented its defense procurement, moving away from its traditional reliance on Russia. Indeed, nearly half of all Indian defense deals by value in recent years have been bagged by the U.S. alone, with Israel a distant second and Russia relegated to the third slot.

Given that India has become the world’s largest arms importer and the United States remains the biggest exporter, U.S. firms are set to secure more contracts in India, which plans to spend more than $100 billion over the next four years to upgrade its military capabilities, including by buying submarines, heavy lift and attack helicopters, howitzers, and tanks.

Now consider the Iran issue. Just as the Indian rejection of the Boeing’s F/A 18 and Lockheed-Martin’s F-16 bids has made big news but the U.S. landing of multiple arms contracts has received little notice, India’s reluctance to publicly support U.S. energy sanctions on Iran has been in the spotlight but not the quiet Indian strategy since the late 1990s to let the share of Iranian oil in India’s energy imports gradually decline — a trend that has seen the importance of Iranian oil supplies for India considerably weaken.

Few in India consider Iran a friend. But given India’s troubled neighborhood, with the country wedged in an arc of problematic states, New Delhi is reluctant to rupture its ties with Iran, its gateway to Afghanistan — the top recipient of Indian aid. India already has paid a heavy price for taking America’s side on some critical issues in its long-running battle against Iran, even though Washington doesn’t take India’s side in its disputes with China or Pakistan.

The Bush administration persuaded India not to conclude any new long-term energy contracts with Iran, and — in return for a civil nuclear deal with the U.S. — abandon its plan to build a gas pipeline from Iran. New Delhi, by voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board in 2005 and 2006, invited Iranian reprisal in the form of cancellation of a 25-year, $22-billion liquefied natural gas deal which had terms highly favorable to India. That deal’s scrapping alone left India poorer by several billion dollars.

Now the U.S. energy embargo against Iran has pushed international oil prices higher, significantly increasing India’s oil bill. The embargo also threatens to undercut India’s import-diversification strategy by making it place most of its eggs in the basket of the Islamist-bankrolling, Saudi Arabia-led oil monarchies that continue to play a role in South Asia detrimental to Indian interests. In fact, thanks to the U.S. embargo against Iran, the swelling coffers of the iron-fisted oil sheikhdoms are set to overflow, increasing their leverage in the region and beyond.

Lost in the U.S. public discussion is an important fact — the declining share of Iranian crude in India’s total oil imports as part of a conscious Indian effort to reduce supply-disruption risks linked with the lurking potential for Iran-related conflict. Since 2008 alone, Iranian oil imports have swiftly fallen from 16.4 percent to 10.3 percent, with the Indian government just announcing a further planned reduction  of 11 percent in the current financial year. Given India’s soaring oil imports and search for new sources of supply, the Iranian share is set to decline further, even without India’s participation in the U.S. embargo.

The repositioning of the U.S.-India relationship was never intended to be transactional. Rather it was designed as an important geostrategic move to underpin Asian security and serve the long-term U.S. and Indian interests. But even if the relationship were viewed in transactional terms, the U.S. has reaped handsome dividends.

On Iran, the right course for U.S. policy would be to encourage India to continue reducing Iranian oil imports by granting it a waiver from American sanctions law — as Washington has to Japan and nine other countries — and by helping to finance the retrofitting of Indian refineries that presently have a technical capacity to process only Iranian oil.


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